With a dearth of large prints compared to yesterday, here are the standouts today in the options market:
- AAPL – 6 of the top 13 most traded lines today are in AAPL, as the stock had its highest volume day since earnings on July 25th. See my CotD post today for thoughts on AAPL’s technical setup
- EW – The stock is down more than 20% after sales for the quarter missed. Management said demand was hurt by government cutbacks in Europe and limited insurance reimbursements in the U.S. Stock is still up more than 20% on the year. Options trading 20 times daily average, with the Oct 85 puts the most actively traded. 1 month implied vol up 10 points.
- OC – Trading 4 times normal options volume, OC stock is down 8% after cutting earnings forecasts based on a weaker roofing/composites business environment. The Feb 25 calls are the most traded line, trading 2,652 at $6.90 this morning, an institutional buyer.
- VRNG – Traded almost 63,000 options today, over 5 times the daily average. Call to put ratio 3.8:1. 30-day implied volatility is in the 250’s. Stock has traveled between $3 and $5.70 since the beginning of Oct. The suits and rumors of suits regarding intellectual property related to GOOG continues.
- NFLX – Down 10% today, options traded almost 2x average daily volume. Calls and puts almost even. Stock was upgraded by Morgan Stanley yesterday, and downgraded today by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Vol skew all wiggedy whacked:
- APC – saw 2 interesting trades today, one was a roll of the Nov 70 / Jan 75 calls 18,000 times, the other was the purchase of the Jan 72.50 / 80 / 87.50 call butterfly that was bought 5,000 times for 1.15. This trade breaks even at 73.65 up about 5% from current levels with the max gain at 80 of 6.35
- XLF – large buyers of Puts…..The Jan 15/13 Put Spread traded 80,000 times, for .27 and the Dec 15 Puts, 39,000 were bought for .27.
- YUM – In Front of tonight’s Q3 report options volumes were more than 5x normal with the Oct 65 and 62.50 puts leading in volume of 11k and 6k respectively.
- WFT – One large seller of the Nov 10 / 15 strangle to close, at $0.19, 27,000 traded. Bizaree decision to sell 2 cheap options with 6 weeks to expiry, including earnings.
- AA – The report just came out, stock up about 1%. Oct weekly and regular expiry 9 lines the most active, implying about a 3.5% move.